Unmanned Satellites

Solar astronomy was given a powerful new tool with the launch on April 1 of the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) to study the mysterious region of the solar atmosphere where temperatures soar from 5,000 K (8,500° F) near the visible surface to about 10,000,000 K (18,000,000° F) higher in the corona. TRACE carried an extreme-ultraviolet telescope to monitor the plasma trapped by thin bundles of twisted magnetic force lines, which were presumed to contribute to coronal heating. TRACE soon provided a dazzling series of images of the transition region and corona.

The field of solar studies was dealt a major, though temporary, blow on June 25 when contact was lost with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), positioned in a "halo" orbit around L-1, a gravitational balance point between Earth and the Sun about 1.5 million km (930,000 mi) away from Earth. Contact was reestablished in September, and by mid-October scientists were reactivating the science instruments.

The last spacecraft in the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics campaign was launched on Dec. 2, 1997, when Germany’s Equator S spacecraft went into an equatorial orbit within the ring current of the Van Allen radiation belt. Data transmission failed in May 1998. The Advanced Composition Explorer, launched in 1997, reached its station in the L-1 halo orbit, where it was to sample the makeup of the solar wind before it struck the Earth’s magnetosphere.

A new chapter in space studies opened with the February 25 launch of the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, the first of three NASA-funded, student-built and student-operated satellites. The mini-satellite carried instrumentation built by the faculty and students of the University of Colorado to measure how solar X-rays and auroral activity affect nitric oxide (a stratospheric-ozone-destroying gas) in the upper atmosphere. France launched the SPOT 4 remote-sensing and reconnaissance satellite on March 24. SPOT 4 carried instruments that could monitor vegetation at a one-kilometre (0.6-mi) resolution and other cameras that provided images at 10-20-m (33-66-ft) resolution.

Launch Vehicles

In October the U.S. Congress passed the Commercial Space Act to allow the Federal Aviation Administration to license firms to fly vehicles back from space. Since the 1980s private firms had been able to acquire licenses for commercial space launches, but until recently the return trip had been too expensive for any but government agencies. The Space Act also required the federal government to foster a stable business environment for space development.

NASA’s X-33 moved ahead with testing of its rocket engines and heat shield and assembly of its first flight hardware. The X-33 was a subscale demonstrator of Lockheed Martin’s proposed VentureStar Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) that would ascend from ground to orbit as a single unit and then fly back to Earth. No boosters or tanks would be shed along the way. One of the innovative elements of the X-33 was its linear aerospike engine, which comprised two lines of burners firing along a wedge between them. The outer "wall" of the engine was formed by shock waves from the vehicle’s high-speed flight. A 2.8-second firing in October at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Miss., initiated tests that would lead to full-scale testing of the engines.

NASA also moved to ensure complete testing of the X-34, a smaller RLV that was to be air-launched from a Lockheed L-1011 jetliner. NASA was buying parts to make a second vehicle in case the first was seriously damaged. The X-34 was a single-engine winged rocket, 17.8 m (58.4 ft) long and spanning 8.5 m (27.9 ft). It would fly as fast as eight times the speed of sound and reach altitudes as high as 76 km (250,000 ft) to demonstrate various RLV concepts, including low-cost reusability, autonomous landing, subsonic flights through inclement weather, safe abort conditions, and landing in strong crosswinds.

Several launch failures dotted the calendar during the year, including the first attempt by amateurs to launch a satellite by "rockoon"--a rocket carried to high altitude by a balloon. It also was the first attempt by amateurs to launch any satellite. More spectacular failures came with the losses in August of a Titan 4 carrying a classified spy satellite and a Delta III launcher, on its first flight, carrying a Galaxy X communications satellite. A novel style of launch succeeded on July 7 when Russia orbited Germany’s Tubsat-N and Tubsat-N1 remote-sensing microsatellites atop a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Russia hoped to market launch services using missile submarines that it otherwise could not afford to keep operable.

Mathematics and Physical Sciences: Year In Review 1998. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1566028/Mathematics-and-Physical-Sciences-Year-In-Review-1998/92540/Unmanned-Satellites

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